This is a very strange article to me.
Do some tasks run slower today than they did in the past? Sure. Are there some that run slower without a good reason? Sure.
But the whole article just kind of complains. It never acknowledges that many things are better than they used to be. It also just glosses over the complexities and tradeoffs people have to make in the real world.
Like this:
Windows 10 takes 30 minutes to update. What could it possibly be doing for that long? That much time is enough to fully format my SSD drive, download a fresh build and install it like 5 times in a row.
I don’t know what exactly is involved in Windows updates, but it’s likely 1) a lot of data unpacking, 2) a lot of file patching, and 3) done in a way that hopefully won’t bork your system if something goes wrong.
Sure, reinstalling is probably faster, but it’s also simpler. If your doctor told you, “The cancer is likely curable. Here’s the best regimen to get you there over the next year”, it would be insane to say, “A YEAR!? I COULD MAKE A WHOLE NEW HUMAN IN A YEAR!” But I feel like the article is doing exactly that, over and over.
I’ve heard if we get enough people, we could make a whole new human in a month.
Could probably shave that down to days or even hours with enough resources
It’s like the other comments are living in a parallel universe.
What part of the article did they actually read? Isn’t the Slack/Electron resource utilisation screenshot enough to prove an important point?
No, Electron-based applications are not better than “they used to be.”
We all fucking know why Electron got all of these companies interested in making applications with it: cheap, probably imported labour to build applications. That’s it. And no, it is not better “DX” either. NPM and the NodeJS ecosystem in general are toxic and unsustainable for larger applications.
Isn’t the Slack/Electron resource utilisation screenshot enough to prove an important point?
For most people: no.
They work around it. They buy new hardware and they’re not sure why. There’s massive business in selling people new computers (I’m including smartphones here).
For most in the tech industry: no.
Their job depends on them not understanding and/or not caring about this stuff. If they did care and acted on it, they risk losing a job to the next person who is happy to go “yes, sir”, write more shit, and add it to the pile.
we’re wasting computers at an unprecedented scale.
Edit: I hate to see anyone calling out others on their “waste”. I did that a lot when I was a younger professional, and I have since learned many good reasons for what I previously considered waste.
Reason for edit: Refocused my comment on myself, beacuse my reaction to that phrasing is really about myself.
That is a bold ui design for someone saying how bad the web is nowadays.
Though it is a bit reminiscent of geocities so I guess it tracks with the idea that modern software is worse than old software.
JavaScript bad.
Oh my god! This struck right into my soul! Very good read and something which deserves your attention.
